Thought Crime Bills Threaten Talk Radio

HR 1966 has cleared the House and now faces the Senate as S.909, the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Prevention Act[2] (officially, the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act). The bill is expected to sail through the Senate as it did in the House. It will provide federal assistance to the states, local jurisdictions, and Indian tribes to prosecute hate crimes, and for “other purposes.” It creates special protective status based on race, color, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, and disability.

Kansas Rep. Todd Tiahrt compared the bill to Orwell’s Animal Farm and said it would damage free speech.

S.909 is a direct violation of the First Amendment. It allows the federal government to prosecute people involved in “hate speech” transmitted over television, radio, and the internet. The House version of the bill states:

Whoever transmits in interstate or foreign commerce [radio, TV, internet] any communication, with the intent to coerce, intimidate, harass, or cause substantial emotional distress to a person, using electronic means to support severe, repeated, and hostile behavior, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both. (HR 1966, SEC 3, Sec. 881a)

In other words, if a talk show host engages in “hostile” speech against a person or persons of the above mentioned federally protected group that talk show host will face federal prosecution and the prospect of a two year prison term.

According to Alan Potash[3], director of the Anti-Defamation League for the Plains States, “freedom of speech does not extend to racist groups.”

The ADL played an instrumental role in passing the Hate Crimes Prevention Act. “ADL has long been in the forefront of national and state efforts to deter and counteract hate-motivated criminal activity. Hate crime statutes are necessary because the failure to recognize and effectively address this unique type of crime could cause an isolated incident to explode into widespread community tension,” the ADL website[4] states.

In the wake of a series of crimes the corporate media and the ADL have linked to “white supremacists” (the killing of police officers in Pittsburgh and the attack by James von Brunn on the Holocaust museum in Washington), the ADL and its partners on the so-called left have engaged in an orchestrated campaign to demonize groups and individuals that are not racist or separatist.

The Department of Homeland Security drafted a template for this persecution with its report on “rightwing extremism.” The DHS and police agencies around the country have linked pro-life, states’ rights and anti-illegal immigration activism and support for the Second Amendment to racist thought crime as defined by the ADL and the Southern Poverty Law Center.

A d v e r t i s e m e n t

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During a speech delivered at the Anti-Defamation League National Leadership Conference in Washington, DHS secretary Janet Napolitano[6] admitted the agency enjoys a special relationship with the ADL. Napolitano said the ADL and DHS “have had some good partnerships” and said the agency has placed its employees in the ADL’s “advanced training school to educate us on the tactics used by extremists and terrorists.”

After the white supremacist Richard Poplawski allegedly killed three police officers in Pittsburgh, the ADL attempted to link radio talk show host Alex Jones to the crime. “One of Poplawski’s favorite places for such conspiracy theories was the Web site of the right-wing conspiracy radio talk show host Alex Jones. Poplawski visited the site, Infowars, frequently, shared links to it with others, and sometimes even posted to it,” the ADL wrote in an article on Poplawski[7].

California Democrat Rep. Linda Sánchez introduced the Megan Meier Cyberbullying Prevention Act in April, a bill so egregious it earned the title the “Censorship Act of 2009.” On May 6, Sánchez wrote[8] for the Huffington Post: “The Supreme Court recognizes that in some instances words can be harmful. For example, you cannot falsely yell ‘FIRE’ in a crowded theater. If you say it even once you can be held liable. Yet, you can repeatedly emotionally abuse someone with words, pictures, and false impressions online and get away scot-free.”

Sánchez’s bill contains the following language:

Whoever transmits in interstate or foreign commerce any communication, with the intent to coerce, intimidate, harass, or cause substantial emotional distress to a person, using electronic means to support severe, repeated, and hostile behavior, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both…

As law professor and blogger Eugene Volokh[9] noted on April 30, the bill will allow the government to go after bloggers and internet journalists engaged in speech that may result in “emotional distress.”

The ADL is also involved in making sure the Megan Meier Cyberbullying Prevention Act is passed and used against its enemies. “Whether cyberbullying is related to identity-based group membership, however, or more universal characteristics such as appearance or social status, online social cruelty can produce devastating consequences for the targets and may be a precursor to more destructive behavior, including involvement in hate groups and bias-related violence,” the ADL writes[10] on its website.

HR 1966, S.909, the Megan Meier Cyberbullying Prevention Act and other such legislation will be used to shut down, prosecute, imprison, and thus silence the opposition. HR 1966 covers television and radio, while the Megan Meier Cyberbullying Prevention Act addresses the internet.

The DHS — at the behest of the ADL — has accomplished its essential work of demonizing constitutionalists and patriot groups and individuals as domestic terrorists. Corporate media propaganda continues to deliver the message that opposition to illegal immigration, abortion, and support for the Constitution and the Bill of Rights is “extremism” that will result in the murder of late term abortion doctors, police officers, and security guards.